


Waking Up

by Dyce



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Drabble, F/M, One-Shot, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-18
Updated: 2015-01-18
Packaged: 2018-03-08 00:22:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3188771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dyce/pseuds/Dyce
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Katniss wakes up, during the Victory Tour, when Peeta has a nightmare, and finds out things she has been trying not to know.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waking Up

**Author's Note:**

> This work was written for Rachel on tumblr, to cheer her up a little.

Prim has had nightmares, bad ones, ever since our father died. I don't know if they're the same as mine, but I know that she needs me when she has them, needs to be held and sometimes sung to, and I have learned to wake at the first hitching breath or movement. Maybe it's because I asked him about it, but that night I do wake up when Peeta has a nightmare, the same way I do for Prim. I'm awake before I know why, heart beating faster, and then I feel Peeta twitch and stir beside me, a little choked sound in the back of his throat that might have been a whimper if his mouth wasn't clamped shut.

I prop myself up on one elbow, looking down at him. Sweat is beading on his forehead and his eyes and mouth are squeezed tight shut. He looks as if he's being tortured and trying not to make a sound, even in his sleep. I go to shake him, but I can't. He's hurting, and a shake seems so impersonal... I may be cold, as Gale says, but I'm not that cold. So instead I nestle against him, curling my arm around him and resting my forehead against his temple. "Peeta," I whisper, feeling him shaking. "Peeta, wake up. It's just a dream."

His eyes snap open and he gasps once, then his eyes focus on me. His hand comes up to clutch at my arm, just for a second, and then he relaxes. "Katniss," he says softly, smiling up at me. "Don't worry. I'm okay now."

He's not okay, and neither am I. I knew he loved me, or thought he did. I wasn't ready for what I saw in his face in that first moment that he was awake, when he reached for me before he was sure I was there. I'm not good at feelings, at knowing what others feel or even what I do, but I knew that look. I've felt it on my face often enough when I've woken reaching for Prim.

Peeta doesn't just love me. I am _everything_ to him. As my mother couldn't endure life without my father, as I preferred certain death in the Games to life without Prim, Peeta's nightmares are of losing me because there is nothing worse that can happen to him. I _know_ it, though I don't think I could explain my certainty. I know it because I've felt it. Because I've seen it in my mother, and in me. You don't forget that feeling.

Even as he frowns and lifts a hand toward my face, probably wondering why I haven't answered, I think for the first time about life without Peeta. I have told myself often enough that he would be better off with someone else. That it was an act. That I don't want to love anyone. All those things are true, but when I picture a world without Peeta - infection killing him in the Games, or finding him frozen after a hard winter, or him getting sick as people do in Twelve - I can't bear it. I can't breathe, my eyes burn with tears and I fold against him, burrowing my face into his shoulder and clutching at my knotted stomach.

The idea of a world without Peeta, without his gentleness and kindness, without knowing he is _there_ even if he's not speaking to me, without his eyes meeting mine in that perfect understanding that renders my inability with words and feelings unimportant... no. I might be able to live in that world, for Prim's sake, but it would be hollow and empty without him.

I am so angry with him for making me know that. I was doing so well at pretending, even to myself. But I cannot know, really know, that I am all the world to him and still lie to us both about my own feelings. As always, the more vulnerable someone else is, the less I can defend myself against them. Like Prim. Like Rue.

Like Peeta, lying in our cave and looking up at me with fever-bright eyes, begging me not to go to the feast. He meant that, I realise now. It was never even slightly an act. He truly would have preferred death to losing me, even then.

"Katniss?" He strokes my hair, holding me close. "Did you have a nightmare too? I'm sorry I didn't wake up."

I open my mouth to tell him that I did, to explain my weakness in the easiest way, but I don't. I can't lie to him now. "It wasn't a nightmare." I cling to him, and he holds me as tenderly as if I had never lied to him, never hurt him. I feel his head turn, his lips press against my hair, and I wonder how often he's done that when I was too lost in my nightmares to notice. That thought squeezes a sob out of me. "Peeta, I..."

"What is it?" He sounds worried - he knows me well enough to know that this isn't normal behaviour for me at any time, even after my worst nightmares. He draws away enough to look down at my face, still stroking my hair. "Katniss, tell me." The sweat on his face isn't dry yet, from a nightmare of the worst thing that could possibly happen, and yet he's trying to comfort me. Hiding how much he feels because he knows I don't want it.

Another sob escapes me and I fumble for the words that I am so inept with. "It's all your fault. And Haymitch's. Mostly Haymitch's. But yours too."

"What is? Did something happen?" He gathers me close again, resting his cheek against the top of my head as it settles on his shoulder. "Just tell me. We'll deal with it."

"He told you it was all just an act," I blurt out, and the memory of that day hurts as badly as Clove's knife in my face. "And you just _believed_ him. You didn't even give me time to say anything."

He freezes, but I can hear his heart hammering. Very slowly, he pulls his head back to look down at me. "I..." He swallows hard. "If I had, what would you have said?" I can feel him tensing up, bracing himself for a blow, but the naked hope in his eyes makes me shiver. He's tried so hard, for my sake, not to add to the pressure on me. But I can tell now how desperately he's wanted more.

"I don't know. I mean, I would have said that I didn't know then." I sit up, hugging myself tightly. I don't think I can stand feeling him tense up, feeling his heart race, not if I want to get through this. "Because I _didn't_ know. It was an act at first, and then... then parts of it weren't, and I didn't even know which sometimes, and I was going to lose you, and..."

He sits up too, and after a moment he reaches out and takes my hand, looking down at it. I can feel his strong, square hand shaking as it clasps my smaller one. "I thought - you looked upset when Haymitch said it and... and guilty. I thought he must be right, and you just didn't want to hurt my feelings by saying it."

"I didn't _know_." My throat is tight, and I find myself clutching his hand tightly. "I just... I'm not good at feelings. Even mine. Especially mine. I couldn't... it was too fast." I swallow hard. "But it wasn't all an act. Not then."

He brushes his thumb over the back of my hand. His thumb is broad and square, light against my darker skin. I can't look away from it. "And now?" he whispers, as if he's afraid of the answer.

I'm afraid of it too, but it's too late to stop now. "Now I have nightmares about losing you too," I tell him quietly. "I thought... I kept telling myself that you'd be better off with someone else. That you'd just end up hating me, if we dated, because I don't want children or because I'm cold and heartless and..." The words won't stop, pouring out of me like water out of a dam. I hadn't realised how tightly I'd been holding myself in check until now. "That I didn't want to love anyone anyway, and I really didn't, but I can't... if I lost you, if anything happened to you, I couldn't... I couldn't live with it, I couldn't..."

I start to cry, still clutching at his hand, and then he yanks it away and I don't have time for more than one indrawn breath before he wraps his arms around me, clutching me tightly and rocking me a little. "I wouldn't," he murmurs, fingers twining through my hair, lips brushing my forehead and my temple. "I wouldn't, I couldn't, not with _anyone_ else. You're not cold and heartless, you're not, and if I lost you..." He shudders and clutches me tighter. "I couldn't live with it either. Without you, I would have nothing. Nothing to live for. You're _everything_ , and I know that's not fair to you, I know you never wanted that, but I can't stop feeling it - "

We've had a lot of practice at kissing lately. I didn't like it much at the time - it was too staged, too forced - but at least I have a certain amount of expertise now. I can kiss him and get the angle right, not mash our noses together or bump our teeth. And this kiss is different. It's fierce and real and tinged with desperation, and I melt into it as completely as he does.

Somehow - I have no memory of how, later - I end up on my back on the bed, Peeta leaning over me to kiss me again and again. I clutch at him with shaking fingers and he cups my face with his free hand and we can't seem to stop or get close enough. It's not about sex - at least I don't think it is, but what do I know - but a frantic need to hold on, to not lose each other, to never let go. There are incoherent words between the kisses, words like 'love you' and 'don't leave me' and 'never' and 'always', interspersed with whispering each other's names and noises that aren't words at all.

I could pretend I didn't love him, I could even really believe it, until now. I could think I wasn't sure. And I do still have feelings for Gale, friendship and what might have been more if things had been different. But it is Peeta I cannot live without, whose endless love and patience can soothe my anger as Gale never can. So when he asks, with the panic that comes of not believing it is possible that it's true, if I really love him, I tell him yes and call him an idiot for not noticing I'd already said it twice. He laughs shakily and kisses me again, my lips and my nose and my eyes and my forehead. "I heard. I just..."

"I know." I kiss him back, fists clenching in his shirt and holding on as tight as I can. "I do. Always."

When dawn comes we are twined together, hands and limbs and bodies coiled so we touch as much as physically possible. I am still afraid, but it feels more distant now. I may not have convinced Snow yet, but Peeta knows, and I know, and no-one can take that from us now. "I'm still bad at saying things," I say softly.

"That's okay. I can do the talking." He lifts one of our twined hands to kiss my fingertips gently. "I love you. I always have, and I always will. Whatever happens, I'll never regret that."

"I won't, either." I turn my head to kiss his jaw, which happens to be the most convenient part of him. "And you'll stay with me?"

"Always," he murmurs, and I know it is a promise.


End file.
